There is a decent amount of excitement around Ubisoft’s upcoming, Canadian-made Far Cry 6 — so much so that scammers are looking to capitalize on it by offering fake access to a beta version of the game.
Spotted by SlashGear, the official Ubisoft Support Twitter account (@UbisoftSupport) tweeted confirmation that an email about Far Cry 6 beta access is fake.
“We can confirm the email regarding FC6 beta access is a phishing attempt. It has been reported. Please do not respond if you have received this email or similar,” the Ubisoft Support tweet reads.
It quotes another tweet from YouTuber ‘theRadBrad’ (@thaRadBrad), who warned of a fake email from the official Ubisoft email address offering beta access to Far Cry 6.
“It even has an embargo with a special password for access,” theRadBrad explains.
We can confirm the email regarding FC6 beta access is a phishing attempt. It has been reported. Please do not respond if you have received this email or similar. Thank you for the report! https://t.co/G7jBlRS6IW
— Ubisoft Support (@UbisoftSupport) February 19, 2021
Media and content creators often get information or access to products early with embargoes that prevent them from publishing details until a specific date or time. It’s not uncommon for companies to share embargoed information through password-protected websites or cloud storage. It seems the Ubisoft Far Cry 6 scam masquerades as an embargo, targeting content creators.
theRadBrad indicates that accessing the password-protected files from the email downloads a virus that “watches your screen and records everything you do.”
While SlashGear notes that phishing scams promising early access to an anticipated game aren’t new, most scams target regular people. Perhaps the people behind this scam hoped that targeting content creators with what looks like a legitimate embargo would yield more success.
Whether you’re a content creator or not, avoid clicking any links in or responding to emails about Far Cry 6 beta access, even if it looks like the email came from Ubisoft.
For that matter, it’s generally good practice to avoid clicking links in any emails unless you’re confident that the email originated from a trusted source.
